Muscat Holiday Hotel - Muscat, Oman 

I found this hotel quite old and as other people have said, slow checkin and checkout and unfriendly staff. The rooms were in desperate need of remodeling. Bed was old and needed to be replaced. Bathroom had parts of wall broken around the tub area and not fixed. The room did seem clean though. The restaurant was old, the food was not great and I would avoid eating there again. The pool was ok. Very large and clean. I found it hard to believe that it is rated at three stars and would say it is more like a 2 to 2 1/2 star at most. I am a business traveler and would stay here if another hotel was unavailable because it at least clean, but would first try to book a different hotel.

Unfortunately, I had to stay there for three nights... Most of negative comments can be confirmed. Concerning the strange smell, apparently, nobody listend to the noise (Psshht) every minute and looked up: In the bathroom, above the toilet AND in the entrance above the door to the bathroom are installed these automatic spray engines as used in public toilets... they give all minutes a dose of this awful perfume (somewhere between skunk and musk). Grip the cover firmly right and left, give it a strong pull and the cover flips down. Get out the spray and/or the batteries, open the window for 30 minutes and switch the air condition to max. -> no more smell. For the rest, the hotel reminds me strongly to the hotels in earlier years in the former "socialist" countries (e.g. Hungary, CZ, RDA): aweful breakfast room, three servers, but don't try to ask for something, they disapear immediately and it takes a lot of time until you see them again. The scrambled eggs on the buffet are made from some artificial egg-powder (tastes urgh), if you ask to get freshly made scrambled eggs, they confirm, and some 20 minutes later you get something that tastes and looks identical to the stuff on the buffet. Coffee on the buffet is only Nescafe, but they ask you, if you want fresh coffee. If so, it takes only 15 minutes until they serve you freshly made.....Nescafe. Better don't ask for tea. Hot water is served immediately, but the tea bags only 20 minutes later. We skipped any meal at this place for the rest of our stay.